The Lord is My Shepherd

A few words to introduce myself. As the new French Overseer’s wife (a great
challenge and honor!) pastoring a church in the Paris suburb, mother of twin
girls of 23 and full time teacher in a Highschool, I want to share with you that indeed Psalm 23 genuinely depicts all the various seasons of our life : the most exciting and peaceful times, as well as the most fearful and darkest ones. No wonder that it’s one of the Psalms we all know by heart ! As a woman, I went through many beautiful exciting periods YET also valleys of sorrows and hardship. We all know how it shakes our daily lives, but our confidence too and even our faith in the living God. How can that happen ?

Let’s read PSALM 42, v4-8
Do you remember those times (but how can you ever forget them!), when you led a great procession to the Temple on festival days, singing with joy, praising the Lord ? Why then be downcast ? Why be discouraged and sad ? Hope in God ! I shall yet praise him again, YES, I shall again praise him for his help. YET, I am standing here depressed and gloomy, but I will meditate upon your kindness to this lovely land where the Jordan River flows (…) All your waves and billows have gone over me, and floods of sorrow pour upon me like a thundering cataract. YET day by day the Lord also pours out his steadfast love upon me (…)

It isn’t new that we naviguate through so many various and paradoxical emotions, feelings and thoughts. They seem so contradictory, unacceptable, YET this is our human nature, our weakness as well as our strength, our dependence to our Creator.

We praise and we weep.
We cry out and we sing.
We lift our hands and we are down on our knees.

The very last storm I have been through (and still struggling out of it), is when I experienced a burnt out with depression, (beeing prevented from working for some time) after my mum and dad passed away in about a year’s period. Not so much their death in the Lord (praise God) had hurt me, but much more my inner engine and body that completely broke down at one specific moment in Spring 2023.

Many months before, I often had to travel back and forth far to my parents’ home to care about everything around the house, the medical issues, the home-nurses, the family issues and all the administrative tasks to finally have to move both of them into an Old people’s home on my Birthday. My mum died 2 months later. I just got exhausted, stressed, anxious and sad losing my dear mum. My dad passed away a few months later, while I was at the COG General Assembly in the US. You may know about all the work and care it needs if your are the daughter of dear old parents. However, the burn out was just an explosion of so many other frustrations, wrong mindset, hyper active life that I had been used to for years, probably my whole life.

THE LORD knew about it all.

You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.

Temptation for me was to deny God’s care and everlasting love, to deny the dysfunctional behaviours and thoughts I had in some aspects of my life. YET, even when I don’t feel it, even when I go through depression and the shame I think goes with it as a Christian, God is here, he loves me. He still uses me, even when not beeing able to do ANYTHING. To REST in the Lord is my biggest challenge, to experience true SHABBATH, for my body, my soul, my heart is now my GOAL for the coming months and years.

WE ALL NEED it, even our non-christian friends and family. I want to be a witness, and I AM, even when going through sickness and hardship. I NOW can understand those who suffer from a burn out or depression period, even if I had never imagined going through such a path. How too proud I was to believe I was prevented from such psychological suffering.

Our troubles should not diminish our faith or disillusion us. Instead, we should realize that there is a purpose in our suffering. Problems and human limitations have several benefits :

-help us remember Christ’s suffering for us
-help us keep from pride
-help us look beyond this brief life
-prove our faith to others
-give God the opportunity to demonstrate his great power

May us not resent our troubles- YET see them as opportunities. Oh LORD, help us and bless us in this humble path. The Lord IS my shepherd.

Many blessings in Jesus’ Name,
Annie Dibling